This is the time of year you see flocks of birds heading south. If they are geese, they typically fly in a skein or V formation. Ducks fly in looser skeins, and smaller birds like shorebirds and songbirds fly basically in a bunch. Pelicans and cormorants fly in a line. And many blackbirds and starlings […]
Flocks Heading South for the Winter Read More »
Fall is migration time in the Northern Hemisphere when birds leave their summer homes to winter at locations to the south; in the spring the migration is reversed, the birds moving from their summer homes to breeding locations in the north. But have you ever thought about the birds living in the Southern Hemisphere? Where
Migration Time, Again Read More »
As I drove home from a week at a lake, catching few fish, I saw a group of fish-eating birds circling overhead – pelicans. Were the Pelicans mocking me? Probably not, but I stopped to admire these large, seemingly ungainly waterbirds which are so adept at piscivory. Known for their unique long beaks and large
During each February the Great Backyard Bird Count occurs. Collectively, 7,538 species of birds – 2/3s of the known 10,960 species were found this year. More than 200 countries shared bird sightings. eBird is a global database of bird observations. It is an amazing tool for birders to keep track of their sightings, but it is also much more than
Quantitative Ornithology Read More »
Fidel Castro was the dictator of Cuba who was also known for his love of birdwatching. Although there is not much written regarding his passion for birding, it’s widely known that it was one of his passions. He probably had an interesting life list as there are several endemic bird species in Cuba and it’s
I have received several emails lately from folks asking why the birds have disappeared from their feeder. Well, I could be a wise guy and say “How am I supposed to know?” because I often don’t know where they live, where the bird feeder is located, what kind of seeds they were feeding or any
Birds Disappearing from Feeder in the Fall Read More »
I was on an ocean cruise several years ago in the Indian Ocean. As we approached the island chain of the Seychelles I looked over the horizon and saw a very prehistoric-looking bird, nothing I recognized. As the distance between the ship and the “bird” closed, I discovered it was a giant fruit-eating bat. It
Giant Tortoises of the Seychelles Read More »
I have often mentioned that bird fossils are hard to come by, as compared to other vertebrates and hard-shelled invertebrates. It’s mainly because they are lightweight and thin-skinned. The earliest birds or birdlike creatures were reptile-like and were heavier boned than later bird forms and they left a decent fossil record, but later versions, as
According to a recent study*, there are about 50 billion living birds in the world, six times as many as there are people. It was not easy to come up with that figure but the diagram below gives a graphic representation of how the researchers did it. It’s not easy to understand, but basically, using
How Many Birds in the World? Read More »
I am reading the The First Frontier by Scott Weidensaul, prolific nature writer and eminent ornithologist. A synopsis of the book reads: “Frontier: the word carries the inevitable scent of the West. But before Lewis and Clark, … it was the East that marked the frontier—the boundary between Native cultures and the first colonizing Europeans-
The First Frontier Read More »
